This week: Short Stories Are Short Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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Start with short stories. After all, if you were taking up rock climbing, you wouldn't start with Mount Everest. So if you're starting fantasy, don't start with a nine-book series.
-George R. R. Martin
“It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power.”
-Raymond Carver
“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”
–Ray Bradbury
“A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.”
–Neil Gaiman
“A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.”
–Edgar Allan Poe
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Short Stories Are Short
A short story…can be held in the mind all in one piece. It’s less like a building than a fiendish device. Every bit of it must be cunningly made and crafted to fit together perfectly and without waste so it can perform its task with absolute precision. That purpose might be to move the reader to tears or wonder, to awaken the conscience, to console, to gladden, or to enlighten. But each short story has one chief purpose, and every sentence, phrase, and word is crafted to achieve that end. The ideal short story is like a knife–strongly made, well balanced, and with an absolute minimum of moving parts.
I love writing short stories because you imagine an idea and then write about it. Very little background is required, you're more setting a mood, an atmosphere, and then relaying your idea.
The thing I have learned about short stories is that you must use strong descriptive verbs. Don't elaborate on the weather or the scenery, but instead just dig into the story.
Most stories we tell in real life are under 500 words. You’re at a party, everyone has a glass of wine, and suddenly you have the floor. You throw out your little story like a grenade. ‘Once I knew a guy who…’ And if you have any social graces at all, you probably keep it under 500. So my advice would be this: Don’t get all up in your head thinking short-short stories have to be poetry without the line breaks. Don’t put on your beret. Just tell a story, an actual story. Quick, while they’re still listening.
W.D.Wilcox
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Quick Words
I have a lot of books filled with short stories. Why? Because I love to write 'em.
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Short Stories: March 19, 2025 Issue [#13032]
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